Monday, May 19, 2014

Following some recent softness, the 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) server networking market delivered impressive results in 1Q14, according to the latest server-class adapter & LOM/controller report from Crehan Research.The strong showing was even more noteworthy given that servers based on Intel's next-generation Grantley platform have not yet hit the market.

"New server micro-architecture platforms, such as Grantley, tend to drive a positive step-function in demand for higher networking speeds," said Seamus Crehan, president of Crehan Research. "The increased processor performance puts greater demands on the network in conjunction with driving a server-upgrade purchase cycle," he explained. "Such stellar results in the seasonally-soft first calendar quarter, even prior to the arrival of Grantley-based servers, are positive indicators for the market's future growth."

Besides the overall strong growth, the report points to other positive milestones in the server networking market during the quarter, including:

Record 10GbE shipments which surpassed a 10-million-port annual run rate

10GBASE-T shipments exceeded a one-million-port annual run rate

One vendor – Intel – shipped over a million 10GbE ports during the quarter

40GbE shipments surpassed a 50-thousand-port annual run rate

Last quarter, Crehan Research reported that 10GbE data center switch shipments surpassed those of 1GbE to become a majority of total data center switch shipments. Many of those ports are deployed as uplink, aggregation and core networking connections. Crehan Research now reports that this technology is starting to migrate to direct server access in much greater volumes.